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Interpretive Summary: The meat industry has increased interest in rapid screening methods for quality control. The spectroscopic measurements are useful for rapid data acquisition and simultaneous determination of several quality parameters, resulting in possibly replacing expensive and slow reference methods. In the poultry industry, good water holding capacity (WHC) is essential in maintaining high yields and avoiding purge. WHC is defined as the ability of fresh meat to retain moisture and directly relates to the juiciness of the meat. One of the major contributors to decreased WHC in the poultry industry has been cited as pale, soft, and exudative (PSE) broiler breast meat. Current methods to estimate WHC are tedious and require off-line testing. Thus, nondestructive, noninvasive online methods are necessary for better performance. We examined spectroscopic method as a tool for predicting quality parameters including pH, color, and WHC in raw broiler breast.

Technical Abstract: Visible/Near-infrared spectroscopy (Vis/NIRS) was examined as a tool for rapidly determining water holding capacity (WHC) in broiler breast meat. Reflectance measurements for 85 breast filets were recorded over the 400 to 2498 nm wavelength range at 0.5 nm intervals and 32 scans. Chemometric analysis was performed utilizing Savitzky-Golay derivative processing and multiplicative scatter correction. Both partial least squares (PLS) regression and discriminant analysis were used to develop calibration models tested by cross-validation. PLS regression modeling resulted in coefficients of determinants (R2) of 0.72, 0.67, and 0.62 for WHC, pH, and L* values, respectively. The mean spectra of samples categorized as either high or low WHC, pH, and L* showed significant differences between absorption peaks between 400 to 800 nm and between 1400 through 2500 nm (associated with heme pigments and water absorption, respectively). The results showed potential use of Vis/NIRS as a predictor of WHC in pale broiler breast meat.